Twelve Crowded Hours (1939) User Reviews (10)

meh....

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 9 May 2011]

While I have always liked Richard Dix, I must admit that this is one of the more ordinary films he made. Dix stars as a newspaper man--one that is frankly too glib and clever to be real. When a coworker is killed, Dix thinks a gangster is responsible and soon steals $80,000 from the crook. Much of the rest of the film is spent with the crook and Dix talking...a lot. Their tough banter seemed stagy and the film went no where for a very long period. By the end, I frankly didn't care who killed who--I was just bored and looking forward to another film.

Dull writing, clichéd characters and a complete waste of Lucille Ball in a supporting role (she could have just as well been played by a ball of lint--the part was dull and shallow). While it's not a bad film, it's also not particularly good and seemed to be just another B-movie from RKO.

minor Lucy

[SnoopyStyle · 4/10 · 8 July 2020]

Newspaper investigative reporter Nick Green is searching for dance instructor Paula Sanders (Lucille Ball)'s wayward brother Dave who is headed for trouble. Indeed, he has gotten in trouble with gangster George Costain and his bag.

Of course, I'm watching this for Lucille Ball. This is not really a showcase for her. She's just the blonde dame. Mostly, this is a weakly-made crime drama. This may be an early example of somebody trying to make a shaky-cam movie or the camera is swaying back and forth for no reason. Probably the latter and it's making me nauseous. It must be in post-post production because even the the closing cards are swaying back and forth. This must be a recording of a recording. Honestly, I don't know why anybody cares about Dave or any other character in this movie. I'm not really following that closely and I don't like any of these characters.

Not A Top Noir

[DKosty123 · 5/10 · 23 June 2017]

This is an RKO "B" picture that could have been better, but definitely shows it was made on the cheap. Richard Dix, the lead is a B actor who really had a dismal career. Lucille Ball is the most well known of the script but she really is just in the back ground for most of this movie.

We have a reporter trying to chase down some gangsters in one night. Of course the technology is ancient but the old press room is here. The reporter gets into trouble along the way.

The script is pretty bad here, and no where is it more obvious than in the times that people are hovering around in scenes jut watching with nothing to say or do. Lucille Ball really did not deserve a role like this one and the entire film is quite forgettable.

If you really want to check out a young Lucy, she is very much the only reason to look at this one. There's lots going on, but the viewer path through this film is lacking.

A breezy "B"

[chris-48 · 22 September 1998]

Twelve Crowded Hours is a tidy, swift and enjoyable little "crime comedy". Richard Dix, who seemed much more at ease in these programmers than in "A" features, is good as the newspaper reporter trying to bring the mobster responsible for his editor's death to justice. He manages to temper the character's innate cockiness and make him likeable. Lucille Ball enthusiasts may be disappointed with her role here; even though she has a few funny lines, her Paula Sanders is drab. Coming off much better are Donald MacBride as the sour detective and Cy Kendall as the burly mob boss. (The type of higher-profile role he should have had more often.) A nice, breezy 64 minutes.

Another dismal B-film role for Lucille Ball at RKO...

[Doylenf · 4/10 · 15 November 2006]

Poor Lucy. It's a wonder she ever got any of the big breaks that came her way when you see how she was mistreated at RKO in a bunch of ingenue roles that required not even one-third of her talent.

She's barely even visible in this trifle, a gangster movie that has RICHARD DIX getting most of the attention as a newspaper reporter on the heels of a rackets number gangster (CY KENDALL) while Lucy sits on the sidelines and pops up in only a few scenes. Even in the scenes she's in, she's hardly given more than a few lines to speak.

The plot is nothing special, just a series of car chases and shootouts that make little sense since none of the characters are anything more than cardboard fixtures. Lucy's not the only one wasted here. ALLEN LANE as her kid brother has virtually nothing to do and DONALD MacBRIDE does his usual turn as an exasperated police officer.

Trivia note: JOHN ARLEDGE, who plays "Red", and serves as the juvenile comedy relief, played a dying soldier this same year (1939) in GONE WITH THE WIND. And incidentally, Lucille Ball was sent to audition for David O. Selznick as a Scarlett O'Hara hopeful. Can you believe it???

big names before they were big

[ksf-2 · 6/10 · 27 August 2020]

Nick (Richard Dix) is the reporter, trying to get the goods on local mob boss (Cy Kendall) running the town, but Paula Sanders and her brother ( Lucille Ball, Allan lane) get in the way. You'll recognize Donald MacBride as the Detective... MacBride always yelled "Jumpin Butterballs!" in the marx brothers films. Granville Bates is McEwen, but Bates keeps looking off to the right... appears to be reading the lines off a card. Lucy had been making shorts and un-credited film roles since the early 1930s, but had just recently started getting bigger, credited parts. it all works. very linear. they get taken by the crooks,and have to figure out how to get out of it. no suspense. it's all very flat-line average. another pretty small role for Lucy, but she's on her way, after all those un-credited roles. Dix (and his son) both died quite young, as did Kendall. Directed by Lew Landers. made four films with Lucy. they never really knew what to do with her, until she got her own series.

Plot in twelve minutes, dimwitted dialog for the rest of the hour.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 3 April 2024]

An extremely cliched, humorless script results in a truly forgettable RKO programmer that for Lucy fans is a waste of time. She has one potentially great scene as a dance instructor who socks boyfriend Richard Dix and walks out, not even having any payoff from her fussy Franklin Pangborn like boss. Then out of the blue, Lucy's brother Allan Lane is wanted in connection with a murder, and reporter Dix goes out of his way to prove his innocence.

This film could have been done without Ball's character entirely and nobody would have even noticed the difference. In fact, you could have edited out a lot of things in this that in context of the main story makes no sense. A group of people being called out of the blue and given strange instructions is one montage that could easily have been scissors out.

Cy Kendall as a mobster and Donald MacBride as the frustrated detective don't add much. Dix making a bunch of phone calls pretending to be drunk adds to the confusion going on in this convoluted mess. After a while even the forced arguments between Ball and Dix become tiresome. Dorothy Lee, the female lead in the Wheeler and Woolsey comedies, pops up to obviously conclude her RKO contract, and it's easy to say in regards to that after seeing this, lucky her.

Good Cast, Murky Screenplay

[dougdoepke · 18 June 2017]

At times director Landers shows imagination as in the sudden close-ups. Otherwise there's little snap to the proceedings, but at least he keeps things moving, along with a couple eye-catching car crashes. The crowded hours are more like a crowded and rather loose screenplay that fails to really engage. It's something about a newspaperman getting the goods on a rackets kingpin, but the narrative rolls around too much to establish itself. Actor Dix gets little chance to show his usual grit, while Lucy gets mainly five lines and twenty minutes of looking over Dix's shoulder. So for Lucy fans, it's like a teaser with no payoff. With McBride, Kendall, and Richards, the supporting cast features familiar faces from that era. Too bad they don't get a better chance to show their stuff. I wish there were something to recommend besides the clever twelve-hour bookends, but there isn't. All and all, it's a rather flat programmer despite the promising criminal elements.

Good, Not Great

[RoboGarrett · 13 April 2020]

This is a decent 1939 crime drama. Richard Dix is good and Lucille Ball is as well, in a non-comedy performance. Worth watching but not the kind of thing that would make any "best of the decade" lists or anything.

But certainly not one hour not lost for me

[searchanddestroy-1 · 9 March 2014]

I won't add much to the other comments about this little crime programmer. Like many others of this era, it mixes up comedy, romance and thriller. I am not very fond of all this, but a Lew Landers film is for me always Worth seeing, at least for my Library. I watched it for the second time and the thing that amazed me the most - you will laugh - is the hired killer sequences. The bull - ram - truck driver paid to kill some potential witnesses. The some sequences with him, such as this one, be called at home, when he is among his family, a poor family, is exquisite. Short but pleasant and so surprising. It seems very weird for me to focus on such details, but I am like this. Forget the scenes with Dix and all the gals, you certainly will forget them. The final action scenes are quite good for this kind of production.